Explanations
by NinjaWolf10
Summary: Having raised the turtles for 16 years he would have hoped they'd grown out of the chaos and mayhem they usually cause by now. But still he has to listen to the ridiculous explanations for strange, irrational and frankly worrying behavior. 03 verse
1. Balloons

Balloons

In his life as a single father and Ninja master to four teenage mutant ninja turtles things had never been normal. Even in their younger days before venturing to the surface his four precious turtle sons could still cause havoc and chaos by the most simple of actions. As any parent would he dealt with such situations as they came usually by calmly asking for an explanation of what happened, before deciding on what action to take. He truly fooled himself into believing it was a phase they would grow out of as they got older, giving him some peace from the madness. However as the aged rat knelt across from his two oldest sons in the Dojo, he was starting to believe there would never be an end to it.

His eldest son Leonardo was sat before him with a look of deep thought on his face as he looked to be formulating an explanation as to why he had decided to replace his revered twin Katana swords with pink balloon swords instead.

Glancing to Leonardo's left he found his red masked son looking uncomfortable and refusing to meet his father's eyes, which was a clear sign to the rat this son was also considering how to explain the situation, which for Raphael appeared to be pink balloon wings attached to his shell. Deciding to break the awkward silence he figured now was an appropriate time to ask for an explanation.

"Well my sons, would either of you care to explain your current accessories?" Splinter asked, carefully concealing the smile on his face as both turtles were startled back into the present.

"Well you see..." began Leonardo clearly mortified at being caught by his father with pink balloon swords, the young leader's seemingly endless calm deserted him and he stammered to a halt.

"Mater Splinter" began Raphael straightening his posture to look his father in the face "Leo an' me were arguing about weapons, when Leo said he could take down anything with any weapon. An' I said what about a flying turtle with balloons. So we got some balloons out of the closet to test his claims. It was a matter of honour, Sensei."

At this explanation Leonardo seemed ready to melt through the floor in shame, where as Splinter had to admire Raphael for attempting to retain what dignity he could with wings on his shell.

"I understand Raphael. I take it, that it was testing these claims that brought about an early death to our coffee table and upturned most of the furniture in the living room?" questioned the exasperated rat.

"Mater Splinter I'm so sorry, we should never have..." answered the same faced leader, until Splinter held up a paw to silence him.

"It's quite alright Leonardo, I understand the situation perfectly well. You are both to clean up the mess in the living room and find a replacement coffee table. You are both free to go, although I would suggest Raphael in the future you refrain from standing on the coffee table and Leonardo, pink really does not suit you." decided Splinter with a slight smirk as he watched both turtles bow to him before moving to leave the Dojo. Raphael was still trying to maintain his image despite the wings attached to his shell, where as Leonardo all but scurried out of the Dojo in shame.

With a deep sigh the Ninja master could only shake his head at their antics, with Michelangelo and Donatello visiting April he had hoped for some peace to meditate. Closing his eyes to begin his meditation again Splinter could not help but ponder how many more ridiculous explanations for strange, irrational and frankly worrying behavior he would have to listen to. At 16 years old surely his sons could be a bit more responsible?


	2. Tea

**Hope you all enjoy this one, the idea came to me and I had to write it!**

Tea

_Where did I go wrong?_

This was the single thought running through Splinter's head as he sacrificed yet another part of his breakfast into the toilet. It wasn't the breakfast that had caused this, of that he was certain, the reason for this sudden fit of vomiting was most certainly from his mid morning cup of tea. Overall the lair had been relatively quiet that morning; training and breakfast had passed by without incident and the rat truly believed he would have some peace to enjoy his stories whilst his sons enjoyed their own pursuits.

"Are you feeling better Sensei?" questioned his red masked son, poking his head around the doorframe of the bathroom. Ah Raphael. The only son he believed was innocent. Sensing that the vomiting was finally at an end the rat shakily got to his feet and flushed the toilet whilst mentally preparing himself to hear the explanations from his sons this time.

"Yes thank you Raphael, are your brothers in the living room still?

"Yeah they're waiting for you" answered Raphael who was trying to hide a smirk at his brothers' situation. He knew they were in for it.

As he entered the living room, Master Splinter was met with three concerned faces; already the three of them were kneeling around his armchair, awaiting their chance to plead innocent no doubt. Still feeling shaky the ninja master who had been defeated by a cup of tea sat down heavily into his chair, whilst Raphael chose to lounge on the sofa in anticipation of his brothers' humiliation. Splinter saw no reason to make him leave, after all he was innocent

From where he sat, the rat could see the shame burning across Leonardo's face as well as the guilty look on Michelangelo's face. Donatello however looked curious, as if he couldn't figure out why something hadn't worked.

"I will ask only once, who added poison to my tea and more importantly why did you do it" said Splinter sternly, even though he still felt rather off after his bout of vomiting.

Silence.

Where had he gone wrong with them, did they not even have the decency to tell him why they tried to kill him? Since no one was forth coming with an answer Splinter decided to start with Donatello since he didn't even have the decency to look ashamed.

"Donatello perhaps you should start the explanation" This seemed to relieve Michelangelo somewhat since he was not called on to explain the attempted patricide. Leonardo however looked as if he had been presented with the electric chair, as his brother began his explanation.

"Well you see Master Splinter; I was researching poison in my lab when Mikey came in pestering me to find out what I was doing, so I started to explain to him about different poisons and how I was looking at cures. When Leo comes in, and after hearing what we were talking about tells us the best cure is prevention. By which he meant building up a tolerance to poison's. He told us he was going to try ingesting small amounts of different poisons to build up resistance like a true ninja. "

If anything Leonardo seemed more shame faced than before and continued to stare at his knee pads as Donatello continued his tale.

"I told Leo there was evidence to suggest doing that doesn't improve your immunity to poisons but only weakens your body. Leo insisted it did and that you had been doing it to yourself for years, which was why you never got food poisoning and vomiting bugs."

Donatello was explaining this like a science project noticed Splinter as his stomach twisted again, but thankfully he didn't feel the need to throw up. Whilst it was true the rat hadn't been very ill for years and didn't recall vomiting before, he believed it was more to do with a better diet and cleanliness than his sons had.

"I didn't think you had been building up a tolerance to poisons, I thought it was your mutated rat DNA that gave you the immunity to the bugs we pick up. Mikey agreed with Leo though, so Leo suggested we add some very mild poison to your tea and see if it affected you, since he was so confident in his theory and I was confident in mine, Leo added some of this non lethal poison to your cup when he made you both tea before you watch your stories" finished his purple masked son unashamedly.

"We didn't mean to make you sick Master Splinter! You're going to be ok right?" blurted out Michelangelo

"I think I will recover Michelangelo" answered Splinter sharply "Although you do not seem to have taken a large part in this plot, you also did nothing to prevent your brothers poisoning me and so for that you are to do extra training everyday for a week, and you are grounded for a week as well.

" Leonardo, although I admire your dedication to the ways of the Ninja if you had questions regarding poison you should have asked me yourself instead of just believing you were right. You are the leader, supposedly the most responsible and yet you add poison to my tea! Donatello you also should have known better than to test your theories on family!" Splinter lectured the two sons who were usually the least trouble.

"You are both grounded for two weeks and shall perform extra meditation sessions every night with me, and since you both seem so interested in poison I expect a three thousand word essay on the subject by the end of the week."

Leonardo had visibly deflated throughout his reprimand and he now stood and went to leave along with his brothers after bowing an apologising to Splinter, as did Michelangelo. Donatello however stood with a puzzled look on his face before he also apologised to the rat. "I'm sorry for the poison Master Splinter, but can I get a sample of your DNA? I was sure you would be immune to the poison Leo added into your tea."

"No, now go!" snapped Splinter as his purple clad son scurried off to his lab.

Sighing Splinter sunk further into his arm chair and closed his eyes.

"Can I get you anything Master Splinter" asked Raphael who had remained silent throughout his brothers' explanation and punishments, but Splinter knew he had enjoyed not being on the receiving end of this lecture. His innocence was proven by the fact he had only returned to the lair after visiting Mr Jones whilst the rat was vomiting in the toilet.

"No thank you Raphael, I think I will go for a lie down" Raphael only nodded before heading to the dojo.

At least Splinter had now learnt two important lessons. Firstly never take tea from Leonardo again, and secondly Raphael is the only son who didn't have a hand in poisoning him!


	3. Glue

Glue

"Explain yourselves. Now." demanded Master Splinter to three of his sons, as they gathered in the bathroom of the lair.

Splinter had been in bed, sound asleep when his sharp hearing had picked up the sounds of mischief coming from within their home. He might have ignored it, had he not distinctly heard the sound of one turtle's pleads being dramatically cut off. The noise having woken him anyway he decided it was best to see what was going on before any of his sons could damage the lair, or each other.

He had however not expected to find Raphael and Donatello standing in the bathroom admiring their handiwork, of Michelangelo hanging from the ceiling. His orange banded son appeared to be suspended from the ceiling by boots he was wearing, whilst his arms were tied behind his shell with duct tape, a piece of which was covering his mouth. Despite Michelangelo's obvious panic at his predicament the rat couldn't help but wonder how his sons had managed it.

Although curious to know what on earth had possessed his children to stick their brother to the ceiling, tiredness and frustration at his sons for their irrational behaviour didn't make for a very happy Father. Was it that much to ask they keep their strange behaviour to daylight hours? It was with some relief however that Splinter noted Leonardo didn't seem to be involved with his brothers' antics this time. Deciding to leave Michelangelo as he was for the time being, Splinter had directed his request for an explanation to his other two sons. Neither of which looked particularly bothered by their behaviour.

Raphael looked like justice had been served, and Donatello simply looked curiously at his younger orange clad brother who was clearly wondering why they hadn't taken him down yet.

"I'm waiting" snapped Splinter as his tail lashed on the ground. After quickly glancing at each other Raphael shrugged and began his explanation.

"Mikey set up a prank that ended with my Sai blades glued together" growled Raphael who was still clearly annoyed with his younger brother "and he glued the door to Donnie's lab shut."

"I wouldn't have noticed until morning but I went to put a book back in my lab when I couldn't get the door open" cut in Donatello who also seemed unimpressed with his brother.

"So you decided to take revenge on Michelangelo?" questioned Splinter

With a shrug Raphael confirmed his theory "We figured since he seemed to like glue so much, he could hang here till morning."

"How did you do it?" the rat couldn't help but wonder out loud. At this point Michelangelo was getting more agitated at his predicament and that he didn't have the chance to give his side of the story.

"Well, me and Raph decided we had to do something to get back at Mikey so Raph held him down with the duct tape while I wrestled some old boots onto his feet. Then it was a simple matter of using superglue and hanging him from the ceiling" finished Donatello with a smirk.

After taking a minute to process exactly what his sons had been doing the rat sighed and decided to get his over with quickly.

"Take your brother down and then go to bed. Michelangelo with remove the glue from your weapons Raphael, and your door Donatello in the morning, before he reports to me for extra meditation. Whilst you two will clean this bathroom from top to bottom. Do you understand?"

"Yes Sensei" answered Raphael and Donatello, while Michelangelo nodded furiously from his spot on the ceiling.

Donatello decided it was best to simply untie the shoes to get Michelangelo down and to unstuck the boots in the morning. Michelangelo was relieved to be down from the ceiling and had immediately dropped to his knees complaining about his brothers' unfair treatment of him and their disrespect for his wonderful pranks.

Master Splinter however was in no mood for more trouble and quickly sent all three to bed. The rat master decided to make use of the bathroom himself since he was up and as he sat down on the seat it occurred to him that Leonardo had not reported any pranks being pulled on him. Unfortunately Splinter had already sat down at this point and unwittingly fallen into the trap set for his early rising son, Leonardo. Glue on the toilet seat.

"Michelangelo!"


End file.
